The Elephant Vanishes Part 8

After my husband went back to the office, I folded the paper and pounded the sofa cus.h.i.+ons until they were puffed up again. Then I leaned on the windowsill, surveying the room. I couldn't figure out what was happening. Why wasn't I sleepy? In the old days, I had done all-nighters any number of times, but I had never stayed awake this long. Ordinarily, I would have been sound asleep after so many hours or, if not asleep, impossibly tired. But I wasn't the least bit sleepy. My mind was perfectly clear.

I went into the kitchen and warmed up some coffee. I thought, Now what should I do? Of course, I wanted to read the rest of Anna Karenina Anna Karenina, but I also wanted to go to the pool for my swim. I decided to go swimming. I don't know how to explain this, but I wanted to purge my body of something by exercising it to the limit. Purge it-of what? I spent some time wondering about that. Purge it of what?

I didn't know.

But this thing, whatever it was, this mistlike something, hung there inside my body like a certain kind of potential. I wanted to give it a name, but the word refused to come to mind. I'm terrible at finding the right words for things. I'm sure Tolstoy would have been able to come up with exactly the right word.

Anyhow, I put my swimsuit in my bag and, as always, drove my Civic to the athletic club. There were only two other people in the pool-a young man and a middle-aged woman-and I didn't know either of them. A bored-looking lifeguard was on duty.

I changed into my bathing suit, put on my goggles, and swam my usual thirty minutes. But thirty minutes wasn't enough. I swam another fifteen minutes, ending with a crawl at maximum speed for two full lengths. I was out of breath, but I still felt nothing but energy welling up inside my body. The others were staring at me when I left the pool.

It was still a little before three o'clock, so I drove to the bank and finished my business there. I considered doing some shopping at the supermarket, but I decided instead to head straight for home. There, I picked up Anna Karenina Anna Karenina where I had left off, eating what was left of the chocolate. When my son came home at four o'clock, I gave him a gla.s.s of juice and some fruit gelatin that I had made. Then I started on dinner. I defrosted some meat from the freezer and cut up some vegetables in preparation for stir-frying. I made miso soup and cooked the rice. All of these tasks I took care of with tremendous mechanical efficiency. where I had left off, eating what was left of the chocolate. When my son came home at four o'clock, I gave him a gla.s.s of juice and some fruit gelatin that I had made. Then I started on dinner. I defrosted some meat from the freezer and cut up some vegetables in preparation for stir-frying. I made miso soup and cooked the rice. All of these tasks I took care of with tremendous mechanical efficiency.

I went back to Anna Karenina Anna Karenina.

I was not tired.

AT TEN O'CLOCK, I got into my bed, pretending that I would be sleeping there near my husband. He fell asleep right away, practically the moment the light went out, as if there were some cord connecting the lamp with his brain.

Amazing. People like that are rare. There are far more people who have trouble falling asleep. My father was one of those. He'd always complain about how shallow his sleep was. Not only did he find it hard to get to sleep, but the slightest sound or movement would wake him up for the rest of the night.

Not my husband, though. Once he was asleep, nothing could wake him until morning. We were still newlyweds when it struck me how odd this was. I even experimented to see what it would take to wake him. I sprinkled water on his face and tickled his nose with a brush-that kind of thing. I never once got him to wake up. If I kept at it, I could get him to groan once, but that was all. And he never dreamed. At least he never remembered what his dreams were about. Needless to say, he never went into any paralytic trances. He slept. He slept like a turtle buried in mud.

Amazing. But it helped with what quickly became my nightly routine.

After ten minutes of lying near him, I would get out of bed. I would go to the living room, turn on the floor lamp, and pour myself a gla.s.s of brandy. Then I would sit on the sofa and read my book, taking tiny sips of brandy and letting the smooth liquid glide over my tongue. Whenever I felt like it, I would eat a cookie or a piece of chocolate that I had hidden in the sideboard. After a while, morning would come. When that happened, I would close my book and make myself a cup of coffee. Then I would make a sandwich and eat it.

My days became just as regulated.

I would hurry through my housework and spend the rest of the morning reading. Just before noon, I would put my book down and fix my husband's lunch. When he left, before one, I'd drive to the club and have my swim. I would swim for a full hour. Once I stopped sleeping, thirty minutes was never enough. While I was in the water, I concentrated my entire mind on swimming. I thought about nothing but how to move my body most effectively, and I inhaled and exhaled with perfect regularity. If I met someone I knew, I hardly said a word-just the basic civilities. I refused all invitations. "Sorry," I'd say. "I'm going straight home today. There's something I have to do." I didn't want to get involved with anybody. I didn't want to have to waste time on endless gossiping. When I was through swimming as hard as I could, all I wanted was to hurry home and read.

I went through the motions-shopping, cooking, playing with my son, having s.e.x with my husband. It was easy once I got the hang of it. All I had to do was break the connection between my mind and my body. While my body went about its business, my mind floated in its own inner s.p.a.ce. I ran the house without a thought in my head, feeding snacks to my son, chatting with my husband.

After I gave up sleeping, it occurred to me what a simple thing reality is, how easy it is to make it work. It's just reality. Just housework. Just a home. Like running a simple machine. Once you learn to run it, it's just a matter of repet.i.tion. You push this b.u.t.ton and pull that lever. You adjust a gauge, put on the lid, set the timer. The same thing, over and over.

Of course, there were variations now and then. My mother-in-law had dinner with us. On Sunday, the three of us went to the zoo. My son had a terrible case of diarrhea.

But none of these events had any effect on my being. They swept past me like a silent breeze. I chatted with my mother-in-law, made dinner for four, took a picture in front of the bear cage, put a hot-water bottle on my son's stomach and gave him his medicine.

No one noticed that I had changed-that I had given up sleeping entirely, that I was spending all my time reading, that my mind was someplace a hundred years-and hundreds of miles-from reality. No matter how mechanically I worked, no matter how little love or emotion I invested in my handling of reality, my husband and my son and my mother-in-law went on relating to me as they always had. If anything, they seemed more at ease with me than before.

And so a week went by.

Once my constant wakefulness entered its second week, though, it started to worry me. It was simply not normal. People are supposed to sleep. All people sleep. Once, some years ago, I had read about a form of torture in which the victim is prevented from sleeping. Something the n.a.z.is did, I think. They'd lock the person in a tiny room, fasten his eyelids open, and keep s.h.i.+ning lights in his face and making loud noises without a break. Eventually, the person would go mad and die.

I couldn't recall how long the article said it took for the madness to set in, but it couldn't have been much more than three or four days. In my case, a whole week had gone by. This was simply too much. Still, my health was not suffering. Far from it. I had more energy than ever.

One day, after showering, I stood naked in front of the mirror. I was amazed to discover that my body appeared to be almost bursting with vitality. I studied every inch of myself, head to toe, but I could find not the slightest hint of excess flesh, not one wrinkle. I no longer had the body of a young girl, of course, but my skin had far more glow, far more tautness, than it had before. I took a pinch of flesh near my waist and found it almost hard, with a wonderful elasticity.

It dawned on me that I was prettier than I had realized. I looked so much younger than before that it was almost shocking. I could probably pa.s.s for twenty-four. My skin was smooth. My eyes were bright, lips moist. The shadowed area beneath my protruding cheekbones (the one feature I really hated about myself) was no longer noticeable-at all. I sat down and looked at my face in the mirror for a good thirty minutes. I studied it from all angles, objectively. No, I had not been mistaken: I was really pretty.

What was happening to me?

I thought about seeing a doctor.

I had a doctor who had been taking care of me since I was a child and to whom I felt close, but the more I thought about how he might react to my story the less inclined I felt to tell it to him. Would he take me at my word? He'd probably think I was crazy if I said I hadn't slept in a week. Or he might dismiss it as a kind of neurotic insomnia. But if he did believe I was telling the truth, he might send me to some big research hospital for testing.

And then then what would happen? what would happen?

I'd be locked up and sent from one lab to another to be experimented on. They'd do EEGs and EKGs and urinalyses and blood tests and psychological screening and who knows what else.

I couldn't take that. I just wanted to stay by myself and quietly read my book. I wanted to have my hour of swimming every day. I wanted my freedom: That's what I wanted more than anything. I didn't want to go to any hospitals. And, even if they did did get me into a hospital, what would they find? They'd do a mountain of tests and formulate a mountain of hypotheses, and that would be the end of it. I didn't want to be locked up in a place like that. get me into a hospital, what would they find? They'd do a mountain of tests and formulate a mountain of hypotheses, and that would be the end of it. I didn't want to be locked up in a place like that.

One afternoon, I went to the library and read some books on sleep. The few books I could find didn't tell me much. In fact, they all had only one thing to say: that sleep is rest. Like turning off a car engine. If you keep a motor running constantly, sooner or later it will break down. A running engine must produce heat, and the acc.u.mulated heat fatigues the machinery itself. Which is why you have to let the engine rest. Cool down. Turning off the engine-that, finally, is what sleep is. In a human being, sleep provides rest for both the flesh and the spirit. When a person lies down and rests her muscles, she simultaneously closes her eyes and cuts off the thought process. And excess thoughts release an electrical discharge in the form of dreams.

One book did have a fascinating point to make. The author maintained that human beings, by their very nature, are incapable of escaping from certain fixed idiosyncratic tendencies, both in their thought processes and in their physical movements. People unconsciously fas.h.i.+on their own action-and thought-tendencies, which under normal circ.u.mstances never disappear. In other words, people live in the prison cells of their own tendencies. What modulates these tendencies and keeps them in check-so the organism doesn't wear down as the heel of a shoe does, at a particular angle, as the author puts it-is nothing other than sleep. Sleep therapeutically counteracts the tendencies. In sleep, people naturally relax muscles that have been consistently used in only one direction; sleep both calms and provides a discharge for thought circuits that have likewise been used in only one direction. This is how people are cooled down. Sleeping is an act that has been programmed, with karmic inevitability, into the human system, and no one can diverge from it. If a person were were to diverge from it, the person's very "ground of being" would be threatened. to diverge from it, the person's very "ground of being" would be threatened.

"Tendencies?" I asked myself.

The only "tendency" of mine that I could think of was housework-those ch.o.r.es I perform day after day like an unfeeling machine. Cooking and shopping and laundry and mothering: What were they if not "tendencies"? I could do them with my eyes closed. Push the b.u.t.tons. Pull the levers. Pretty soon, reality just flows off and away. The same physical movements over and over. Tendencies. They were consuming me, wearing me down on one side like the heel of a shoe. I needed sleep every day to adjust them and cool me down.

Was that it?

I read the pa.s.sage once more, with intense concentration. And I nodded. Yes, almost certainly, that was was it. it.

So, then, what was this life of mine? I was being consumed by my tendencies and then sleeping to repair the damage. My life was nothing but a repet.i.tion of this cycle. It was going nowhere.

Sitting at the library table, I shook my head.

I'm through with sleep! So what if I go mad? So what if I lose my "ground of being"? I will not be consumed by my "tendencies." If sleep is nothing more than a periodic repairing of the parts of me that are being worn away, I don't want it anymore. I don't need it anymore. My flesh may have to be consumed, but my mind belongs to me. I'm keeping it for myself. I will not hand it over to anyone. I don't want to be "repaired." I will not sleep.

I left the library filled with a new determination.

NOW MY INABILITY to sleep ceased to frighten me. What was there to be afraid of? Think of the advantages! Now the hours from ten at night to six in the morning belonged to me alone. Until now, a third of every day had been used up by sleep. But no more. No more. Now it was mine, just mine, n.o.body else's, all mine. I could use this time in any way I liked. No one would get in my way. No one would make demands on me. Yes, that was it. I had expanded my life. I had increased it by a third. to sleep ceased to frighten me. What was there to be afraid of? Think of the advantages! Now the hours from ten at night to six in the morning belonged to me alone. Until now, a third of every day had been used up by sleep. But no more. No more. Now it was mine, just mine, n.o.body else's, all mine. I could use this time in any way I liked. No one would get in my way. No one would make demands on me. Yes, that was it. I had expanded my life. I had increased it by a third.

You are probably going to tell me that this is biologically abnormal. And you may be right. And maybe someday in the future I'll have to pay back the debt I'm building up by continuing to do this biologically abnormal thing. Maybe life will try to collect on the expanded part-this "advance" it is paying me now. This is a groundless hypothesis, but there is no ground for negating it, and it feels right to me somehow. Which means that in the end, the balance sheet of borrowed time will even out.

Honestly, though, I didn't give a d.a.m.n, even if I had to die young. The best thing to do with a hypothesis is to let it run any course it pleases. Now, at least, I was expanding my life, and it was wonderful. My hands weren't empty anymore. Here I was-alive, and I could feel it. It was real. I wasn't being consumed any longer. Or at least there was a part of me in existence that was not being consumed, and that was what gave me this intensely real feeling of being alive. A life without that feeling might go on forever, but it would have no meaning at all. I saw that with absolute clarity now.

After checking to see that my husband was asleep, I would go sit on the living-room sofa, drink brandy by myself, and open my book. I read Anna Karenina Anna Karenina three times. Each time, I made new discoveries. This enormous novel was full of revelations and riddles. Like a Chinese box, the world of the novel contained smaller worlds, and inside those were yet smaller worlds. Together, these worlds made up a single universe, and the universe waited there in the book to be discovered by the reader. The old me had been able to understand only the tiniest fragment of it, but the gaze of this new me could penetrate to the core with perfect understanding. I knew exactly what the great Tolstoy wanted to say, what he wanted the reader to get from his book; I could see how his message had organically crystallized as a novel, and what in that novel had surpa.s.sed the author himself. three times. Each time, I made new discoveries. This enormous novel was full of revelations and riddles. Like a Chinese box, the world of the novel contained smaller worlds, and inside those were yet smaller worlds. Together, these worlds made up a single universe, and the universe waited there in the book to be discovered by the reader. The old me had been able to understand only the tiniest fragment of it, but the gaze of this new me could penetrate to the core with perfect understanding. I knew exactly what the great Tolstoy wanted to say, what he wanted the reader to get from his book; I could see how his message had organically crystallized as a novel, and what in that novel had surpa.s.sed the author himself.

No matter how hard I concentrated, I never tired. After reading Anna Karenina Anna Karenina as many times as I could, I read Dostoyevski. I could read book after book with utter concentration and never tire. I could understand the most difficult pa.s.sages without effort. And I responded with deep emotion. as many times as I could, I read Dostoyevski. I could read book after book with utter concentration and never tire. I could understand the most difficult pa.s.sages without effort. And I responded with deep emotion.

I felt that I had always been meant to be like this. By abandoning sleep I had expanded myself. The power to concentrate was the most important thing. Living without this power would be like opening one's eyes without seeing anything.

Eventually, my bottle of brandy ran out. I had drunk almost all of it by myself. I went to the gourmet department of a big store for another bottle of Remy Martin. As long as I was there, I figured, I might as well buy a bottle of red wine, too. And a fine crystal brandy gla.s.s. And chocolate and cookies.

Sometimes while reading I would become overexcited. When that happened, I would put my book down and exercise-do calisthenics or just walk around the room. Depending on my mood, I might go out for a nighttime drive. I'd change clothes, get into my Civic, and drive aimlessly around the neighborhood. Sometimes I'd drop into an all-night fast-food place for a cup of coffee, but it was such a bother to have to deal with other people that I'd usually stay in the car. I'd stop in some safe-looking spot and just let my mind wander. Or I'd go all the way to the harbor and watch the boats.

One time, though, I was questioned by a policeman. It was two-thirty in the morning, and I was parked under a streetlamp near the pier, listening to the car stereo and watching the lights of the s.h.i.+ps pa.s.sing by. He knocked on my window. I lowered the gla.s.s. He was young and handsome, and very polite. I explained to him that I couldn't sleep. He asked for my license and studied it for a while. "There was a murder here last month," he said. "Three young men attacked a couple. They killed the man and raped the woman." I remembered having read about the incident. I nodded. "If you don't have any business here, ma'am, you'd better not hang around here at night." I thanked him and said I would leave. He gave me my license back. I drove away.

That was the only time anyone talked to me. Usually, I would drift through the streets at night for an hour or more and no one would bother me. Then I would park in our underground garage. Right next to my husband's white Sentra; he was upstairs sleeping soundly in the darkness. I'd listen to the crackle of the hot engine cooling down, and when the sound died I'd go upstairs.

The first thing I would do when I got inside was check to make sure my husband was asleep. And he always was. Then I'd check my son, who was always sound asleep, too. They didn't know a thing. They believed that the world was as it had always been, unchanging. But they were wrong. It was changing in ways they could never guess. Changing a lot. Changing fast. It would never be the same again.

One time, I stood and stared at my sleeping husband's face. I had heard a thump in the bedroom and rushed in. The alarm clock was on the floor. He had probably knocked it down in his sleep. But he was sleeping as soundly as ever, completely unaware of what he had done. What would it take to wake this man? I picked up the clock and put it back on the night table. Then I folded my arms and stared at my husband. How long had it been-years?-since the last time I had studied his face as he slept?

I had done it a lot when we were first married. That was all it took to relax me and put me in a peaceful mood. I'll be safe as long as he goes on sleeping peacefully like this, I'd tell myself. Which is why I spent a lot of time watching him in his sleep.

But, somewhere along the way, I had given up the habit. When had that been? I tried to remember. It had probably happened back when my mother-in-law and I were sort of quarrelling over what name to give my son. She was big on some religious cult kind of thing, and had asked her priest to "bestow" a name on the baby. I don't remember exactly the name she was given, but I had no intention of letting some priest "bestow" a name on my child. We had some pretty violent arguments at the time, but my husband couldn't say a thing to either of us. He stood by and tried to calm us.

After that, I lost the feeling that my husband was my protector. The one thing I thought I wanted from him he had failed to give me. All he had managed to do was make me furious. This happened a long time ago, of course. My mother-in-law and I have long since made up. I gave my son the name I wanted to give him. My husband and I made up right away, too.

I'm pretty sure that was the end, though, of my watching him in his sleep.

So there I stood, looking at him sleeping as soundly as always. One bare foot stuck out from under the covers at a strange angle-so strange that the foot could have belonged to someone else. It was a big, chunky foot. My husband's mouth hung open, the lower lip drooping. Every once in a while, his nostrils would twitch. There was a mole under his eye that bothered me. It was so big and vulgar-looking. There was something vulgar about the way his eyes were closed, the lids slack, covers made of faded human flesh. He looked like an absolute fool. This was what they mean by "dead to the world." How incredibly ugly! He sleeps with such an ugly face! It's just too gruesome, I thought. He couldn't have been like this in the old days. I'm sure he must have had a better face when we were first married, one that was taut and alert. Even sound asleep, he couldn't have been such a blob.

I tried to remember what his sleeping face had looked like back then, but I couldn't do it, though I tried hard enough. All I could be sure of was that he couldn't couldn't have had such a terrible face. Or was I just deceiving myself? Maybe he had always looked like this in his sleep and I had been indulging in some kind of emotional projection. I'm sure that's what my mother would say. That sort of thinking was a specialty of hers. "All that lovey-dovey stuff lasts two years-three years tops," she always used to insist. "You were a new bride," I'm sure she would tell me now. "Of have had such a terrible face. Or was I just deceiving myself? Maybe he had always looked like this in his sleep and I had been indulging in some kind of emotional projection. I'm sure that's what my mother would say. That sort of thinking was a specialty of hers. "All that lovey-dovey stuff lasts two years-three years tops," she always used to insist. "You were a new bride," I'm sure she would tell me now. "Of course course, your little hubby looked like a darling in his sleep."

I'm sure she would say something like that, but I'm just as sure she'd be wrong. He had had grown ugly over the years. The firmness had gone out of his face. That's what growing old is all about. He was old now, and tired. Worn out. He'd get even uglier in the years ahead, that much was certain. And I had no choice but to go along with it, put up with it, resign myself to it. grown ugly over the years. The firmness had gone out of his face. That's what growing old is all about. He was old now, and tired. Worn out. He'd get even uglier in the years ahead, that much was certain. And I had no choice but to go along with it, put up with it, resign myself to it.

I let out a sigh as I stood there watching him. It was a deep sigh, a noisy one as sighs go, but of course he didn't move a muscle. The loudest sigh in the world would never wake him up.

I left the bedroom and went back to the living room. I poured myself a brandy and started reading. But something wouldn't let me concentrate. I put the book down and went to my son's room. Opening the door, I stared at his face in the light spilling in from the hallway. He was sleeping just as soundly as my husband was. As he always did. I watched him in his sleep, looked at his smooth, nearly featureless face. It was very different from my husband's: It was still a child's face, after all. The skin still glowed; it still had nothing vulgar about it.

And yet, something about my son's face annoyed me. I had never felt anything like this about him before. What could be making me feel this way? I stood there, looking, with my arms folded. Yes, of course I loved my son, loved him tremendously. But still, undeniably, that something was bothering me, getting on my nerves.

I shook my head.

I closed my eyes and kept them shut. Then I opened them and looked at my son's face again. And then it hit me. What bothered me about my son's sleeping face was that it looked exactly like my husband's. And exactly like my mother-in-law's. Stubborn. Self-satisfied. It was in their blood-a kind of arrogance I hated in my husband's family. True, my husband is good to me. He's sweet and gentle and he's careful to take my feelings into account. He's never fooled around with other women, and he works hard. He's serious, and he's kind to everybody. My friends all tell me how lucky I am to have him. And I can't fault him, either. Which is exactly what galls me sometimes. His very absence of faults makes for a strange rigidity that excludes imagination. That's what grates on me so.

And that was exactly the kind of expression my son had on his face as he slept.

I shook my head again. This little boy is a stranger to me, finally. Even after he grows up, he'll never be able to understand me, just as my husband can hardly understand what I feel now.

I love my son, no question. But I sensed that someday I would no longer be able to love this boy with the same intensity. Not a very maternal thought. Most mothers never have thoughts like that. But as I stood there looking at him asleep, I knew with absolute certainty that one day I would come to despise him.

The thought made me terribly sad. I closed his door and turned out the hall light. I went to the living-room sofa, sat down, and opened my book. After reading a few pages, I closed it again. I looked at the clock. A little before three.

I wondered how many days it had been since I stopped sleeping. The sleeplessness started the Tuesday before last. Which made this the seventeenth day. Not one wink of sleep in seventeen days. Seventeen days and seventeen nights. A long, long time. I couldn't even recall what sleep was like.

I closed my eyes and tried to recall the sensation of sleeping, but all that existed for me inside was a wakeful darkness. A wakeful darkness: What it called to mind was death.

Was I about to die?

And if I died now, what would my life have amounted to?

There was no way I could answer that.

All right, then, what was was death? death?

Until now, I had conceived of sleep as a kind of model for death. I had imagined death as an extension of sleep. A far deeper sleep than ordinary sleep. A sleep devoid of all consciousness. Eternal rest. A total blackout.

But now I wondered if I had been wrong. Perhaps death was a state entirely unlike sleep, something that belonged to a different category altogether-like the deep, endless, wakeful darkness I was seeing now.

No, that would be too terrible. If the state of death was not to be a rest for us, then what was going to redeem this imperfect life of ours, so fraught with exhaustion? Finally, though, no one knows what death is. Who has ever truly seen it? No one. Except the ones who are dead. No one living knows what death is like. They can only guess. And the best guess is still a guess. Maybe death is is a kind of rest, but reasoning can't tell us that. The only way to find out what death is is to die. a kind of rest, but reasoning can't tell us that. The only way to find out what death is is to die. Death can be anything at all Death can be anything at all.

An intense terror overwhelmed me at the thought. A stiffening chill ran down my spine. My eyes were still shut tight. I had lost the power to open them. I stared at the thick darkness that stood planted in front of me, a darkness as deep and hopeless as the universe itself. I was all alone. My mind was in deep concentration, and expanding. If I had wanted to, I could have seen into the uttermost depths of the universe. But I decided not to look. It was too soon for that.

If death was like this, if to die meant being eternally awake and staring into the darkness like this, what should I do?

At last, I managed to open my eyes. I gulped down the brandy that was left in my gla.s.s.

I'M TAKING OFF my pajamas and putting on jeans, a T-s.h.i.+rt, and a windbreaker. I tie my hair back in a tight ponytail, tuck it under the windbreaker, and put on a baseball cap of my husband's. In the mirror, I look like a boy. Good. I put on sneakers and go down to the garage. my pajamas and putting on jeans, a T-s.h.i.+rt, and a windbreaker. I tie my hair back in a tight ponytail, tuck it under the windbreaker, and put on a baseball cap of my husband's. In the mirror, I look like a boy. Good. I put on sneakers and go down to the garage.

I slip in behind the steering wheel, turn the key, and listen to the engine hum. It sounds normal. Hands on the wheel, I take a few deep breaths. Then I s.h.i.+ft into gear and drive out of the building. The car is running better than usual. It seems to be gliding across a sheet of ice. I ease it into higher gear, move out of the neighborhood, and enter the highway to Yokohama.

It's only three in the morning, but the number of cars on the road is by no means small. Huge semis roll past, shaking the ground as they head east. Those guys don't sleep at night. They sleep in the daytime and work at night for greater efficiency.

What a waste. I could work day and and night. I don't have to sleep. night. I don't have to sleep.

This is biologically unnatural, I suppose, but who really knows what is natural? They just infer it inductively. I'm beyond that. A priori. An evolutionary leap. A woman who never sleeps. An expansion of consciousness.

I have to smile. A priori. An evolutionary leap.

Listening to the car radio, I drive to the harbor. I want cla.s.sical music, but I can't find a station that broadcasts it at night. Stupid j.a.panese rock music. Love songs sweet enough to rot your teeth. I give up searching and listen to those. They make me feel I'm in a far-off place, far away from Mozart and Haydn.

I pull into one of the white-outlined s.p.a.ces in the big parking lot at the waterfront park and cut my engine. This is the brightest area of the lot, under a lamp, and wide open all around. Only one car is parked here-an old white two-door coupe of the kind that young people like to drive. Probably a couple in there now, making love-no money for a hotel room. To avoid trouble, I pull my hat low, trying not to look like a woman. I check to see that my doors are locked.

Half-consciously, I let my eyes wander through the surrounding darkness, when all of a sudden I remember a drive I took with my boyfriend the year I was a college freshman. We parked and got into some heavy petting. He couldn't stop, he said, and he begged me to let him put it in. But I refused. Hands on the steering wheel, listening to the music, I try to bring back the scene, but I can't recall his face. It seems to have happened such an incredibly long time ago.

All the memories I have from the time before I stopped sleeping seem to be moving away with accelerating speed. It feels so strange, as if the me who used to go to sleep every night is not the real me, and the memories from back then are not really mine. This is how people change. But n.o.body realizes it. n.o.body notices. Only I know what happens. I could try to tell them, but they wouldn't understand. They wouldn't believe me. Or if they did believe me, they would have absolutely no idea what I'm feeling. They would only see me as a threat to their inductive worldview.

I am changing, though. Really Really changing. changing.

How long have I been sitting here? Hands on the wheel. Eyes closed. Staring into the sleepless darkness.

Suddenly I'm aware of a human presence, and I come to myself again. There's somebody out there. I open my eyes and look around. Someone is outside the car. Trying to open the door. But the doors are locked. Dark shadows on either side of the car, one at each door. Can't see their faces. Can't make out their clothing. Just two dark shadows, standing there.

Sandwiched between them, my Civic feels tiny-like a little pastry box. It's being rocked from side to side. A fist is pounding on the right-hand window. I know it's not a policeman. A policeman would never pound on the gla.s.s like this and would never shake my car. I hold my breath. What should I do? I can't think straight. My underarms are soaked. I've got to get out of here. The key. Turn the key. I reach out for it and turn it to the right. The starter grinds.

The engine doesn't catch. My hand is shaking. I close my eyes and turn the key again. No good. A sound like fingernails clawing a giant wall. The motor turns and turns. The men-the dark shadows-keep shaking my car. The swings get bigger and bigger. They're going to tip me over!

There's something wrong. Just calm down and think, then everything will be okay. Think. Just think. Slowly. Carefully. Something is wrong.

Something is wrong.